1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method and arrangement of extracting and editing message blocks in a telecommunications management network, and more specifically to such a method and arrangement which is well suited for integrated network management wherein messages with different formats are received.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to effectively monitor, manage or maintain a telecommunications network, it is vital to acquire various kinds of managing information or messages issued from the network at a message editing and processing apparatus in an integrated network management system.
Various kinds of message which are received at such a data editing and processing apparatus, are outputted to peripheral devices such as a printer, hard disc or the like, without undergoing any processing/re-arrangement.
It in usual, except for an emergency case, that the messages reaching the data and processing apparatus are stored in a suitable memory. The received messages thus stored in the memory, undergo data processing after a suitable time interval by another system using a predetermined protocol. This technique renders it possible to selectively obtain the required message blocks from the messages received at the data editing and processing apparatus.
In other words, according to the conventional data editing and processing apparatus, all of the messages applied to the maintenance (or monitor) system are initially stored in a memory irrespective of whether or not unnecessary message blocks are included therein. Subsequently, another data processing system selects required message blocks from the message stored in a memory and handles the same in a manner which enables the requisite information to be extracted therefrom.
It is a current trend that a telecommunications network includes different types of exchanges which issue maintenance messages with different formats. Merely for the convenience of description, assume that a first exchange issues a message which includes data of a completion rate (viz., a rate of completed calls to the total number of originating subscriber calls), while a second exchange issues a message which includes, instead of a completion rate, the number of originating subscriber calls and the number of completed calls. In such a situation, if a maintenance system operator wishes to obtain a completion rate for both types of exchanges, the operator has to obtain the completion rate by dividing the number of completed calls by the number of originating subscriber calls in the case of the above-mentioned second exchange. Accordingly, the operator is required to perform extremely cumbersome operations in order to acquire the required information and arrange it in the sane single format. This problem is accentuated by the fact that message blocks indicating the same information are located at different positions with different types of exchanges.
Further, the conventional data editing and processing apparatus, outputs data according to a predetermined format. Accordingly, a system operator is unable to specify the data which is deemed important and the output from the system includes both urgent and insignificant data.
The telecommunications system includes various resources such as transmission apparatus, transmission lines, etc. which apply data in different formats to the integrated maintenance system via corresponding exchanges. It is practically impossible, in an urgent case, to extract the required information, rearrange the various inputted formats, and output data in the same single format. Thus, the prior art has encountered the problem that highly dependable maintenance operation is very difficult to achieve.
Still further, in the event that the format of the messages issued from the system operator is changed, the various resources of the telecommunications network should change the format of maintenance messages outputted therefrom, accordingly. Thus, the prior art brings about the situation wherein the telecommunications network tends to exhibit poor versatility.